“Building a Bridge” with LGBT people, Father Martin talks

The American Jesuit, “It is clear the wish of Jesus to reach out to all those on the margins and to welcome them.” Cardinal Farrell, “A welcome and much-needed book”

Father Martin

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Pubblicato il
31/05/2017

Ultima modifica il 31/05/2017 alle ore 19:36

andrea tornielli

vatican city

A book that will certainly be debated, yet strongly supported by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the American prelate whom Francis has nominated leader of the new Vatican dicastery for lay people, family and life. An American Jesuit, James Martin, wrote it and called it "Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community can enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity". "A welcome and much-needed book - as Cardinal Farrell defined it- that will help bishops, priests, pastoral associates, and all church leaders more compassionately minister to the LGBT community. It will also help LGBT Catholics feel more at home in what is, after all, their church." Vatican Insider interviewed Father Martin, the author of the book now released in the US.

Father Martin, what can you tell us about your experience with LGBT persons?

Like many priests, I’ve done what you might call “informal ministry” to LGBT people for many years. They’ve sought me out for spiritual counseling, confession and conversation. I suppose they may feel more comfortable with me, since I’ve written several times about the church’s need to welcome them more. But after the massacres of the gay men in a nightclub in Orlando last year, I felt the call to be more public about my support of them, which led to this book.

In my experience, no one is as marginalized in the Catholic church as the LGBT person. Over the years, they have told me countless stories about hearing hateful comments from priests, religious sisters and brothers, deacons, and lay pastoral workers. LGBT Catholics often feel ignored, but more often feel insulted and excluded—from their own churches. At the same time, so many have been faithful to the church, continuing to go to Mass, participating in the life of their parish and trying to lead holy lives, all in the face of this exclusion. And they repeatedly forgive the church’s pastors for the insults they hear. This perseverance and forgiveness, I believe, are great gifts to the church. But I’m convinced that if Jesus were walking among us he would be reaching out to them, and helping them feel less like the “other.” Because for Jesus there is no us and them. There is only us.

According to your experience how is it possible to welcome LGBT persons and at the same time, thoroughly present the Church's teachings about homosexual practice according to the Bible and the Catechism?

First, when it comes to homosexuality in the Bible, it’s essential to understand the Old and New Testaments in their historical contexts. The comments on homosexuality, especially those in the Old Testament, were written when the phenomenon wasn’t understood in the way we understand it today.

More important for me is Jesus’s clear desire to reach out to all those on the margins and to welcome them. Today this would undoubtedly include the LGBT person. In the book, I offer examples from the Gospels to illustrate this -for example, the story of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector of Jericho, from Luke’s Gospel. At the time, the chief tax collector would also have been considered the “chief sinner” in the city. But notice what Jesus does when he spies Zacchaeus perched in the tree, hoping to see “who Jesus was.” He doesn’t shout, “Sinner!” No, he sees Zacchaeus and says, “I must stay at your house today!” Then Zacchaeus is moved to repay his debts. For Jesus, more often than not, it’s community first, conversion second.

As for the Catechism, my book focuses on an overlooked part of the Catechism. We are called to treat the LGBT person with “respect, compassion and sensitivity.” And those same virtues can apply to both how the institutional church relates to the LGBT person, and how the LGBT person relates to the church. So there is already in the Catechism a way to move ahead to build a bridge between the LGBT community and the institutional church. But the more fundamental way ahead is Jesus’s way: of encounter, accompaniment and love.